


Gare du Nord

by emryses



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-12
Updated: 2015-05-12
Packaged: 2018-03-30 06:58:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3927193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emryses/pseuds/emryses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How long is a while when you live forever?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gare du Nord

**Author's Note:**

> If I remember this correctly, I began to write this as a drabble after Merin had originally ended... over two years ago? Oops?? I've kind of been adding little bits to it whenever I was inspired. So if it seems choppy, that's probably why. But it's as good as it's gonna get, honestly. I might add more bits to it if I can think of anything else. If anything, I want this to be the beginning process of Merlin's mourning.

Sometimes Merlin can still feel Arthur’s body in his hands, the cold feel of his chain mail underneath his fingers; the warm, fleeting glide of his hand on Merlin’s. There’s times where Merlin can remember that feeling as bright as the sun. But there’s some days when he comes to consciousness, and it’s fading; the memory of Arthur’s gloved hand, warm, but still cold to the touch, pressing against the nape of his neck.

It seems to be the horrible things that Merlin remembers the most, the heartbreak, the longing, and the waiting. The lovely things seem to always fade away first, the laughter, the love and the meaning. Now that he’s gone there seems to be no meaning in anything.

The one thing that Merlin hopes never to lose is the sound of Arthur’s voice. The sound of him saying, _“I couldn’t bear to lose you_ ,”and _“I don’t want you to change” “Hold me”_ and _“Thank you.”_ Because his voice is still clear as day in Merlin’s mind, he can close his eyes just for a second, and the vision will be blurry but the sound isn’t. Perhaps that’s all Merlin needs, the sound of Arthur's voice to remind him to keep waiting.

He feels it, as Camelot fades along with the people he once knew. He hears murmurs from the villages; whispers of Queen Guinevere’s Golden Age, of her just and loyal kingdom filled to the brim with happiness and might. He hears of her search for the man who carried her husband to his resting place, the man who promised he would return again.

_He arrives on the steps of Camelot tired, dirty and poor. The sun is just beginning to peak up behind the towers of the castle, and Merlin collapses. He isn’t sure how long it has been since that day, and he isn’t sure how long he’s kneeling on the steps of the castle, but he knows he’s being lifted by familiar arms, and when he looks up, he’s looking into the eyes of Percival and he gives a faint smile before he finally closes his eyes._

_When he wakes he’s lying in his old, familiar bedroom, and the place causes his heart to ache. It hurts, and he’s barely able to sit up. He walks out of the room, and he finds Gaius. Gaius, the only true father he could ever say he’s had. He lets out a small whimper, and Gaius envelopes him in his arms_

_“I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t save him,” he whispers, tears running silently down his face. “It was my destiny to protect him, and I failed.”_

_“No, my son,” Gaius says, his voice deep and hushed, sending vibrations into Merlin’s skin. “You did what you had to do and it had to happen this way.”_

_“How do you know that?”_

_“Because I know you would not fail.”_

 

Merlin remembers the day that he forgets Arthur’s face. It’s hundreds of years after the battle of Camlann and Merlin is lying in a field clearing his head and breathing the air. And for the first time in a long time, he lets his thoughts fade to Arthur, and it’s only a moment later that Merlin stops breathing. Because he can’t picture his face, he can’t, with all his might force an image of Arthur into his head, and a sob erupts in his chest before he can even try to suppress it. He curls in on himself and cries because just can’t and that hurts not being able to picture the face of the man he grew so much to care and watch for a whole 10 years of his life hurts. And he realizes then that he can’t picture anyone’s face, not Gwen’s, Arthur’s, Gaius’, Gwaine’s, Lancelot’s… or even his own mother’s.

He cries, for such a long time that it’s dawn when he finally rises and walks of into the sunrise and tries to start anew.

 

_When he sees Guinevere again, there isn’t much to be said. She is a grieving wife, a newly crowned queen. She asks the simple questions: “How much pain did he have?” and “Was he alone?” to which Merlin can gratefully say “Not much, by the end” and “No. Never.” And when Guinevere cries that night, she has someone to mourn with her. The two stay up all night, their hands clasped tightly together and Merlin holds her. Holds her as if they were young again, when she had just lost her father, and Guinevere holds him; and that alone feels somehow completely and utterly wrong but Merlin doesn’t care. He lets himself fall into Guinevere’s embrace knowing that she, and only she, can even begin to understand the pain that he is suffering._

_The sun appears over the horizon in the early morning, and Merlin is sitting in the chair, watching Guinevere sleep quietly in her bed. He rises, and moves over to her pressing a small kiss to her temple and then moves to exit through the door. He stands in the middle of the room sorrow spreading deep in his chest, and sighs forcing his knees to keep locked so he doesn’t collapse._

_Home used to be a word that Merlin was searching for – all his young life he searched for his home. He thought when he was young that it was Ealdor, but he knew in his adolescence that Ealdor couldn’t be it for him, that there had to be someplace else. And when he came, as a young 19-year-old boy to the pearly gates of Camelot – Camelot, the city that forbid magic in any shape – and it became his home. Merlin knew home as a place of hope, and happiness, and he knew that Camelot was his home. But now Camelot brought nothing but painful memories._

_He stays. For two years he manages to stay. He stayed for Guinevere, to watch her as she began the Golden Age of Camelot, he watched her wed Sir Leon and it is only he who knows that their marriage is for the kingdom only. There is love there, yes, but only companionable love._

_He stays with Percival and helps him through the death of his only friend left._

_And he only leaves, after Gaius dies peacefully in his sleep. That’s when Merlin can stand Camelot no longer. He says to Guinevere that he will try to visit again sometime soon._

_He doesn’t._

 

Merlin decides to travel, a pack on his back and the wind harsh on his face and he walks. He walks north; because that’s the way he always used to travel. He stumbles upon many people in his time, young children in need of a story, a merchant being attacked by thieves, and many druids who look at him curiously as if they could see into his very being. 

It’s twenty years after Camlann, Merlin is sitting on a bank of water washing his face when he spots his reflection in the water. It startles him at first – because it doesn’t look how he thinks it’s supposed to look. His hair is getting long, curling well past his ears, a beard is growing down his face but it’s not those things that surprise him. It’s the skin on his face which he assumed should be sagging, the wrinkles that he thought should be around his eyes. But the only thing he sees pale skin, as smooth as the day he left Camelot for good.

Merlin remembers this as the day he realizes he will have to wait for Arthur for a long, long time.

 

" _Freya, please,” Merlin begs, tears in his eyes._

_"Merlin I cannot, you know this. We have talked about this.”_

_Oh and have they, Merlin remembers. He visits Camlann a lot, speaks to Freya so much. He sits and he begs, begs for just a moment just to see Arthur again a single moment._

_"Is he – is he asleep?” Merlin asks, “Is it waiting for me too?”_

_Freya says nothing._

_"Freya, I just –_ please! _I need to know, if he’s’ asleep, and if he’s not I need to know if he’s awake. Because if he’s awake … if he’s waiting for me, I need him to know… I need him to know that I’m waiting for him too. That I’ll always wait for him, Freya I always will. Can you please just tell him that? Please? Tell him I’m waiting, tell him I’ll wait forever if I have to, tell him that I … oh hell, just tell him that I love him. He’ll probably laugh at that, call me an idiot but … that’s okay, right Freya? Because he’ll know then. He’ll know…”_

_Freya still says nothing, but reaches out to touch Merlin’s cheek, to wipe the tears off his face, and she nods a sad smile curling on her lips._

_"Can I please just see him?”_

_"Oh Merlin. I wish you could. But these things don’t work like that.”_

_"It’s been so long,” Merlin whispers, his fingers reaching for Freya’s, the woman he once loved long ago._

_"And you’ve been so strong, so brave. You just have to wait a little while longer.”_

_Merlin can’t help but wonder, how long is a while when you live forever?_

Hundreds of years later, Merlin hears of the Crusaders, armies of men coming from Europe to travel back to the Holy Land and Merlin thinks, _yes. This has to be it_. But it’s not; Avalon barely stirs as crusade after crusade happens. Merlin calls for the Great Dragon for the first time since Camlaan, he wants answers. He wants to scream and yell, and beg Kilgharrah to “Take me! Please just take me, there has to be another way because I can’t wait anymore!” But Kilgharrah doesn’t come, and Merlin realizes: Camelot has faded, all his friends and everyone he has ever known is gone, and there is no one left but him. No one but him sitting alone on the shores of an abandoned lake with the wind howling through his ears, he is completely and utterly alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Title inspired by Keaton Henson's song 10 am, Gare du Nord.


End file.
